Page 7 - DMEA Week 07 2022

DMEA COMMENTARY DMEA

subsequently returned to the Amsterdam-Rot- network, he declared.
terdam-Antwerp oil hub. “We’re tired of accidents, being stranded on
The Velos Diamantis, meanwhile, was char- the roads for weeks, risk of attacks by kidnap-
tered by Mercuria and loaded up with 60,000 pers, bandits and terrorists,” he declared.
tonnes of gasoline in Antwerp. It left Antwerp Oladiti also called on federal authorities to
for Lagos last month but changed course on Feb- take action on the agreement that PTD struck
ruary 4. According to a source inside Mercuria, with NNPC last year, saying that the union had
the company no longer owns the cargo. been kept waiting for too long. “We’ve been on
this matter of bad roads for more than three years
NNPC inspectors and last year we reached an agreement with the
NNPC has also tried to forestall any suggestions NNPC, which promised to rehabilitate these crit-
that its own shortcomings played any role in the ical roads and earmarked NGN621bn [$1.49bn]
importation of contaminated fuel. for it,” he commented. “Some of these roads are
Its February 10 statement quoted Mele Kyari, less than 25 km in length. Tanker crashes were
the group managing director of NNPC, as saying almost a daily occurrence. Security challenge on
that the company’s quality inspectors had car- these roads can’t be overemphasised.”
ried out tests showing that the relevant volumes PTD is a member of the umbrella labour
of gasoline had been determined to meet Nige- organisation known as Nigerian Union of Petro-
rian standards prior to discharge. The problem leum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).
became evident on January 20, Kyari said, when It has been called upon to help alleviate fuel
an NNPC inspector determined that the fuel shortages, but as of February 14, NUPENG’s
contained unacceptably high levels of methanol. leadership was said to be ready to recommend a
This only occurred after discharge, at a point nationwide strike.
where petroleum products are subject to more
stringent inspections, he said. The problems it hoped to avoid
“It is important to note that the usual qual- Meanwhile, NNPC has been trying to alleviate
ity inspection protocol employed in both the the supply disruptions over the last week.
load port in Belgium and our discharge ports in On February 8, for example, sources with
Nigeria do not include the test for percent meth- direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that
anol content, and therefore the additive was not the company was seeking to procure emergency
detected by our quality inspectors,” he explained. supplies of around 500,000 tonnes of gasoline
from trading firms. It is not clear whether those
New labour complaints efforts succeeded, but as of February 15, NNPC
In the meantime, gasoline shortages and said it had ascertained that it had more than 1bn
black-market sales of gasoline at inflated prices litres of gasoline that met specifications in its
have continued to spread across Nigeria – and inventories.
the situation has been complicated even further On that date, the company began keeping its
by new threats of labour unrest. fuel depots and retail filling stations in operation
On February 7, for example, Yusuf Othman, 24 hours a day in a push to speed up distribution.
the national president of the Nigerian Associa- As of press time, there were signs that this initia-
tion of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), drew tive might be making a positive difference in big
attention to truckers’ complaints about the low cities, but shortages were still widespread in most
rate of compensation the government has been areas of the country.
offering for hauling gasoline. He told reporters in It seems, then, that Nigeria’s government is
Abuja on February 7 that a number of his group’s now facing some of the same problems it was
members had taken their tankers off the road, trying to avoid by keeping the gasoline subsidy
saying: “Our people have parked their trucks, in place. Consumers are unhappy because their
and more people are going to park [theirs].” best option for filling the tanks of their cars
Meanwhile, Salmon Oladiti, the head of the is to pay more – even if the money is going to
Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) labour union, black-market sellers and not to retail filling sta-
threatened to call a national strike unless the fed- tions. Labour unions are unhappy and threaten-
eral government commits to the rehabilitation ing to strike – even if the proximate cause has
of 21 critical roadways. Speaking to reporters more to do with truck drivers’ grievances than
on the evening of February 9, he said that PTD with the plight of all workers.
was taking this step to protect its own members. And in the meantime, Nigeria’s government
The drivers of fuel tanker trucks face too many is still locked into paying hundreds of billions of
risks because of the poor state of Nigeria’s road naira each month for the gasoline subsidy.™

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